Probably Musee d'Orsay in Paris. It holds many of the most famous paintings ever. You can walk right up to each piece and get a close look. And it has several nice cafés where you can sit and have lunch or a coffee. It's very chill.
By comparison, the Louvre is a mad house, the popular stuff is roped off, and the cafés are more like a snack bar.
If you're into U.S. (pop) culture, I think it's hard to beat the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. It's got historic aircraft, movie props, costumes, etc. Fun stuff. And it's mostly/all? free so you can spend the day going in and out, having lunch nearby in DC, seeing famous monuments right outside, etc.
Another one in the US is The Getty in LA. Absolutely gorgeous inside and out and also has an appearance in a ton of media, including the final shootout in GTA V. It was really surreal getting to walk through the place having seen it so many times before.
Air and Space in DC. You can touch a fucking piece of the moon!
The museum island in Berlin. Just so many interesting artifacts from ancient cultures, you could easily spend multiple days there. (Just don't think too hard about what all those artifacts are doing in Berlin while you're there...)
I'm still salty that the Pergamum temple exhibit was closed. We went to Turkey and "sorry, that temple is in Germany now." We went to Berlin a few years later and "sorry, that temple exhibit is being refurbished now."
All that being said, I enjoyed seeing that very large gold hat.
I just had a look, it's closed for 14 years! I did go before the closure but I will say, it's not good enough to wait 14 years for.
Rijksmuseum van oudheden in Leiden in the Netherlands.
As a kid in the early 80s I used to go there often. It was free then and had and still has a lot of artifacts from Egyptian, Roman and Greek history. Also Leiden is a nice place to visit anyway.
Also Museum Volkenkunde Leiden (now Wereldmuseum Leiden).
I visited Guedelon castle, a site were they are building a medieval castle the medievall way since 1997. It's about two thirds finished now.
It's surrounded by people working trades, just like back in the day. There's a water mill, pottery, blacksmiths, masons, pigment makers and everything.
It's living history, not in the American way were they pretend to be from the period, but people into crafts you can ask stuff.
It's one of the more unique muséal expériences I've had.
I loved the visit too.
The work they do with historians is really interesting, when they need informations about how people where doing X at this period the historian guide them but sometimes the historian have several contradicting theories so they test the theory on the site and report to the historian which one is actually working.
I'm enjoying this thread, I've been to many of the museums already mentioned and they're all great.
For me I think my current favourite is the Natural History Museum in New York which I went to a couple of months ago. It was enormous and every room had a few really special things. I learnt so much!
My all time favourite is just so difficult. I really enjoyed The House of Terror in Budapest, I really didn't know anything about the topic at all and I was thoroughly educated.
I'd also give a special mention to a museum in Rhodes that was full of sculptures they'd pulled from shipwrecks. The geography means there's a lot of shipwrecks nearby and those date from ancient Greece onwards. The oldest sculptures were well rounded by the water and it gave them a very weird ethereal look.
The natural history museum in nyc is amazing. I went when I was there in January and loved it.
I nearly didn't go because I've been to so many Natural History museums and I had a short time in New York, but then my friend reminded me that Ross from friends worked there and that tipped the scales.
It was so huge though, I got there at opening and there was genuinely a point where I realised I needed to speed up or I wouldn't finish it before closing time! That's without any of the special exhibitions too.
I finally got to see a Saturn V up close last year, as well as the control room for the moon landings. I've always wanted to visit, and last year I found myself on a Houston work trip with a day to spare.
KSC museum in Cape Canaveral Florida is similarly awesome. They have tons of rockets and other stuff from the space race and shuttle eras
The main thing I took from KSC is that massive 50+ mile long road from the Orlando area towards Cape Canaveral, just such an American design.
The site and tour was amazing though - particularly the memorial set up like a space mirror, that was particularly poignant.
When I visited Florida a few years ago there weren't any daytime launches - but I did hoof the youngest out of bed at 2am to watch from Orlando on a livestream and see the orange flame in the distance heading to the sky. The poor kid had a "bro wtf" look on his face but hey, there ain't many British kids who can say they've seen a rocket go up into space.
Natural History Museum in London... before you even get to the exhibits it has some of the most breathtaking architecture.
I find that I'm both drawn the the building as well as the exhibits when I'm there, all the pillars are trees with texture and foliage (and monkeys too), the large room with the minerals has sea creatures carved onto the stonework. The carved wood, the floor even the outside with the metal drain pipes and tiled roof...it's a Temple to Nature, really beautiful place!
The DaVinci museum in Venice is pretty really good. It's not too big but it's interactive and concise (especially considering the works of DaVinci).
The Steven Udvar Hazy museum in Dulles VA is another excellent air and space museum. And now that the National Air & Soace museum is being renovated it’s better honestly.
Another great one is the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, WY. Lots of Buffalo Bill exhibits and the largest gun collection in the world. It’s easily a 2 day museum and unexpectedly great.
Omegamart in Vegas. Might not be a ‘museum’, but is a really cool interactive art facility.
Kennedy Space center is amazing.
The museum of flight in Seattle.
Natural history museum in NYC
And I really love history museums in different cities to learn about their past.
This is probably not in the same categories as other experiences, buuuut the Guinness museum in Dublin the evening before st Patrick's day was quite fun!
There's a large bar at the top/end of the museum and a band was playing and 100 or so people ended up in a conga line.
I think I had 4 tasty Guinness during the museum tour sand countless at the museum bar😅
Goes without saying if you are in D.c. all the Smithsonians. But I also recomed the Spy museum. Very unique and new building is very cool.
I second the Spy Museum as well as the Smithsonians.
The Newseum was also a great museum but it has been closed.
I agree. Smithsonian is tops for me so far. Was so thrilled to see the Coelacanth and Ankylosaur!
I just got back from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, and that was almost as good, just a bit smaller. Got to touch a moon fragment, a Mars fragment, and a metallic meteor. Very nice, but much smaller, mineral room. Lots of great dinosaurs and especially pterosaurs. And as the main contributor on [email protected], they had over 20 owl specimens. Great place.
Spy Museum was a blast and worth paying for in a city of mostly free to notch museums. Way more content than I expected, and very interactive.
The Dalí museum in Figueres, Spain. Just nice whacky art all over the place.
That place is so surreal. Hands down my favorite experience
I loved that, did you look up the chimney?
No idea. Last time I was there was about 20 years ago. Would love to take my children.
Honorable mention for the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
I haven't been to many museums, but the Corning museum of glass was interesting.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles should get a mention for being so weird.
Singapore’s cultural history museum was my fave. Small but well designed and explained everything that led up to Singapore existing in a walking format. It wasn’t exactly large.
The Computerspielemuseum or Computer Game Museum in Berlin.
It has 3 rooms setup as timecapsules with a console setup in each.
The highlight was the PainStation where you played Pong against another player, and the loser got whipped, an electric shock or heat applied to their hand through a panel on the game. Excellent.
Special mentions, 1.5hrs in front of Bosch's, Garden of Earthly Delights tryptich in the Prado.
Momi (The Museum of the Moving Image, London) closed in 2002, but had the full history of all cinema. Live period actors jumping out to explain things. I snuck a touch of the foot of the actual K1 Giant Robot from Tom Baker's Dr Who.
Also, the Musée d'Orsay. Just a beautiful experience of so many classics.
Seconding Computer games Museum in Berlin. I didn't like the pain Station (the whip is way to harsh, I think) but beging able to try out so many older games is amazing.
Vasa Museum in Stockholm
In the world? There are a ton of really good museums in the world. But it hasn't been mentioned yet so I am going to say the British Museum.
The Maritime Museum in Aberdeen is brilliant. Not nearly on the same scale as some of the entries in this thread, but it's awesome.
It's modern, it's clean, and it's free. It's quite clearly funded by the oil and gas industry (and it doesn't hide from it where exhibits have been financed) but it's an absolutely fantastic way to spend an afternoon - from the introduction of maritime and naval operations in Scotland to present day works in the North Sea - and a guest hall where seasonal exhibits are hosted.
Of particular note is the recreation of the Piper Alpha cabins and the recovered life vests from that fateful night - genuinely interesting and a museum that punches well above it's weight.
There is an amazing art museum in Detroit. The Detroit Institute of Arts doesn't have the most famous paintings, but I prefer seeing lesser-known works anyway.
I love the DIA!
It's been a good while since I've visited, but I would love to go again.
The Wydah Pirate Museum in Cape Cod MA - it's a smaller museum but it's packed full of artifacts recovered from the wreck of an actual golden age of piracy ship (the Wydah, Black Sam Belamy's ship which wrecked in Cape Cod). They have multiple weapons, cannons, and the only confirmed pirate treasure ever recovered. All the artifacts were just super cool, very few recreations of things almost everything is really from the actual wreck. The excavation of the wreck site is ongoing too, the last room in the museum is dedicated to showing how they recover items that have been encased in "concretions" and has lots of items actively being recovered so you can see the process happening.
Idk, I'm a golden age of piracy nerd for sure so this was super cool to me.
Oh that's so cool!
I really enjoyed the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
Aside from all the world famous obvious answers the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto CA was unexpectedly good. Saw a boot from a space suit, Shaq’s giant sneaker, a golden sandals that belonged to a king and lots of other cool stuff.
I got to activate a historic "Wigwag" at the St. Thomas Elgin Railway Museum. This was an awesome experience for me, as wigwags are extremely rare nowadays and especially in Canada. The museum staff seemed delighted that I knew exactly what it was, as they're rather obscure outside of railfanning circles.
I took a video of it as well: https://youtu.be/TrhnffDZGWc?si=Ox-iCUKXBbhlxE72
#1 The archeological museum in Krakow. https://ma.krakow.pl/en/main-page/
It's an old school museum, which tend to be my favorites, but there had been an art exhibition installed the week before so there were art installations displayed alongside the regular exhibits. The whole experience was wonderfully weird. It wasn't always 100% clear what was part of the regular exhibit and what was art, because some of the regular exhibits were pretty weird. Was there an entire elaborate exhibit (with light-up displays) about the hydrogeology of southern Poland? What was the very Soviet-bloc looking sewing machine doing in that one room? Adding to the fun, the docents were very very insistent upon the order in which you visited each room. I think that was completely normal for them, but it added to the weirdness. There was also a mirror that would sound an alarm if you approached too closely. Its purpose was unclear. When we went in we were not expecting some of the exhibits to be... off.
#2 The Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA. https://mjt.org/
Apparently now open by appointment only. It's weird by design, which is why it gets #2 rating.
#3 Any museum where you walk in and mentally say, "I've made a huge mistake." These tend to be small places where it's just you, your equally uncomfortable spouse, and the curator/owner. You're getting a special tour. I mean, you know in your heart that he's more interested in showing your his weird shit than murdering you, but the question of whether you'll feature in the next exhibit is always floating in the air. They may not have the nicest stuff to look at, but you remember the experience.
Any museum where you walk in and mentally say, "I've made a huge mistake."
I went to an art museum in the balearics once, the door was open, normal stuff, free entry sign, donation box, cloakroom, etc. So I'm walking round the first room and a guy runs in shouting "NO! NO!" and chases me right out of the museum. I definitely made a huge mistake there but I wish I knew what the mistake was!
A tiny museum within sight of Prague Castle. Another tiny museum SOMA San Francisco. Both had amazing art/artists, were completely empty of people, and I have no clue where they are now or what artists I saw.
I liked the People's History Museum in Manchester, UK. I also liked the Coal Mining Museum as a kid
Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria. It hosts exhibitions about technology and humans and I was completely blown away.
Also they have a large 3D room where you get shown around our galaxy... That put me into an existential crisis for a few days.
I really like the Concord in Sinsheim.
I love the tar pits in Los Angeles, the orsay in Paris, the Picasso museum in Barcelona, the sixth floor in Dallas, and any of the DC museums.
Musée Robert Tatin. Robert Tatin created an Univers of art naïf around his tiny house that become later a museum.
It's a mix of sculpture and painting, outside and inside. People will find it weird and strange. I found it amazing and representative of a society.
My 6th grade class took a field trip from Biloxi MS to New Orleans to see the visiting Tutankamon exhibit in 1977. It was the first real museum I'd visited, plus we'd spent the semester studying Egyptian history.
We hat Tut-enk-Amon in Cologne when I was a kid. Definitely something I remember!
That's a once in a lifetime deal! Neat!
We really enjoyed the Milwaukee Public Museum. It was comparable to the natural history museums in Chicago and DC, but it was a little more current and extremely well maintained. We've been back and expect to visit again.
It was comparable to the natural history museums in Chicago and DC
I enjoyed the Milwaukee museum, but in my opinion, it is not.
Georgia Aquarium (Atlanta). Trixie and friends. #IYKYK #notPorn
Second best? Every museum we went to in Sweden was free. "Go on in, see some viking stuff."
Most disappointing? Phallus.is , pretty much nothing but what you think it is. Good for a lark and a titter but no revelations.
The Viking and Technical Museums in Stockholm are 100% worth a visit. I don't remember them being free though.
Also: Skansen.
I loved the penis museum! I was worried it would be uncomfortable for a group of friends but actually it was quite educational.
Georgia aquarium though, I could live there.
The seaplane museum in Tallinn, Estonia. Almost a perfect museum.
I haven't been to any outside the US, and admittedly not that many in, with how many there are. So far The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix has been one of the most interesting to me and I didn't see it all by far. There is a "petting zoo" downstairs with a selection of instruments you can play too! It was crazy satisfying to bang a big gong.
We went to the Museum of Sex after we got married in New York City at City Hall. It sure was memorable lol.
My favourite museum is the Whitney Museum in NYC because it has one of the gargantuan paintings by my favourite artist Alex Katz.
There was some Diamond exhibit at a museum in Michigan I went to as a kid which was fun! Had a lot of interactive things like a station where you could smell "odd" scents of some kind. There were descriptions I'm sure but I don't remember well. But was fun.
Edit: i also remember there being a giant pendulum that was known to have been swinging constantly for some number of years.
Museum and gallery inside the Villa Borghese in Rome.
The tech museum in San Jose. I fucking love that place.
I would say Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands:
